Do You Question Everything?

[maddog]

Gosh, I never ask for reassurance either, and am less likely to do so the more I feel I need it. I usually work so so obsessively hard never to show my insecurities that the entire relationship can feel as though it's defined by my attempts not to need anything and to appear to be comfortable, secure and accommodating. Occasionally I realise that actually "normal" people even seek reassurance at times, and so why should I hold myself to a standard above the norm, and yet somehow I always do. I think if I could somehow be invisible and non-existent within a relationship, then I would.

And like Philippa, I recently also had an experience whereby a friend - a fellow PTSD sufferer - misinterpreted something I had said and thought I was attacking orcriticising her. I can honestly say that I absolutely wasn't and was so clueless as to what she was upset about that I felt ridiculously exposed by how much I had to ask her to explain, just so that I could respond and try to understand what she was upset about.

It was truly horrible. I don't doubt that she felt awful and threatened too, but I felt so panicked and exposed and terrified that I could barely breathe and flooded into an unnecessarily overdetailed explanation of what I had actually meant, which didn't seem to reassure her at all, which made me panic even more... honestly it made me want to run and run and run.

I felt humiliated and sic to my stomach. She seemed to remain suspicious and unconvinced. The entire interaction was palpably awful. It's excruciating from whichever side you're on.

Maddog

 

[Abstract]

One thing to consider Phillipa is that I don't think questioning everything automatically looks like your exes behaviour at all. Some of what you describe sounds aggressive or passive aggressive at best with a good dose of jealousy and controlling behaviour thrown in. One thing I am not is jealous actually. And i detest others being jealous of me.

Questioning everything could just mean someone can't feel safe in the persons motives and in what they say. In them being a safe person. It doesn't take much for my instincts to go down that road.

But you are right and I think we can instigate a self fulling prophecy situation or projective identification and re traumatise ourselves. Not sure if anyone watched Sex Rehab and someone called Kari Ann Peniche. It was painful to watch her as she repeatedly instigated exactly what she was wanting to avoid with her extreme paranoid behaviour and aggression.

PS.

obsessively hard never to show my insecurities

Thanks for sharing MD! I always think I am weird. I very much relate to what you said. And like both you and Phillipa I have been at the receiving end and it can truly be awful. My sister is the queen of doing this and it has resulted in the most horrendous situations including those linked to discussing a trauma incident with my mother and backlash after that I will never forget. I never know when she will flip the switch and she is totally unable to accept that she could wrong. I can only describe being on the receiving end as devastating.

 

[Philippa]

Duly noted Abstract, and thankyou for making the distinction there. There was definitely more going on for him than just ptsd symptoms I think. People get quite insecure when they have feelings for someone else in a relationship, and can act in pretty funny ways. I also hate it when people get jealous of me...it feels terrible, and alienating. I don't really get jealous much, because I do my best to stay aware of what I have and try and be happy with that, and if I want something someone else has, then I work towards getting it, or if I cannot have it, then I deal with that and move on. I don't think he was jealous as such...just maybe too many chemicals running around in his brain that were altering his mood, and he snapped.

 

[Philippa]

I never know when she will flip the switch and she is totally unable to accept that she could wrong. I can only describe being on the receiving end as devastating.

This is the part I find so hard to deal with. When the person is so invested in being right, even when in reality they are wrong, and you cannot say anything. Once they believe you to have done whatever it was they accused you of.

I seem to have had them all, everything from making racist comments on forums just for asking if a person was jewish to sleeping with a housemates boyfriend, to sneaking men into the house through the back fence, when I actually brought him in the front door but asked him to be so quiet that they didn't hear him, to theft, telling my parents that my brother is a drug dealer and having him say he'll never speak to me again for it, when I didn't, to ...god, so many things I cannot even count them all right now...but the point is, once they believe you have done something wrong, that's it...there is no convincing them otherwise. You're the bad guy, and they're right, and you just have to deal with it.

It's depressing but as long as you know you didn't do anything to deserve it, then that's the main thing...but it's still a horrible thing to be on the receiving end of. The terrible thing is that I was always too trusting, and I have this deep need to be trusted and do my best to act in trustworthy ways, so as to not be like the rest of the population, but it is squelched at every corner I turn. Now, I'm like everyone else, and don't give the benefit of the doubt when the person deserves it, and do give it to people who don't! It's so screwed up.

 

[maddog]

Hmmm, I am afraid that when it comes to jealousy, I think I do feel this, though not in the active, overt, aggressive way that would make me want to take what other people have... I tend to experience jealousy as a painful lonely emotion, an agonising awareness of what I don't have that others have and an almost preoccupying longing to have it as well. Maybe that's not jealousy, or maybe it is, I don't know. Like so many of my feelings, whatever it is just ends up feeling like lonely abandoned rejection from the world of humanity.

Maddog

 

[Samantha S]

I've gotten to the point where, if I'm starting a relationship (friendship or otherwise) and it seems to be someone who wishes to be close to me, I just tell them there will be days when I ask them to remind me that we're okay, that I'm loved and valued, and that our relationship is important--and I tell them what will be going on inside me when I ask for that reassurance. I'm not thinking they're trying to harm me, just that they might leave without telling me. Abandonment issues are difficult for me.

I've been married more than 20 years now and my husband says a lot of the reason he feels secure in our relationship is because he knows I'll tell him when I'm having difficulty understanding implied words or humor, or I'm having feelings that don't match the healthy relationship we share, and then I allow him the opportunity to remind me what is real and he gives me space to think about it. I've also had a very close friendship for nearly seven years where we have the same arrangement.

This type of questioning and feedback works for me. I don't know if it would work for other people.

 

[shoulderblades]

In fact the closer I get to a person the more vulnerable I feel. And the more vulnerable I feel the more I start to think they're up to something. I get very hypervigilant and I constantly scan things they say or do or how they say and do them. It drives me crazy because my thinking gets so distorted I get very anxious.

I never ask for reassurance either, and am less likely to do so the more I feel I need it. I usually work so so obsessively hard never to show my insecurities that the entire relationship can feel as though it's defined by my attempts not to need anything and to appear to be comfortable, secure and accommodating.

Both of these ring particularly true to me. Yes, I question everything in relationships - any kind of relationships, not just romantic ones.

I desperately crave approval and acceptance, and even when I receive approval and acceptance, I automatically find myself questioning the sincerity of it. I feel like everything I do and say is not enough; I constantly worry that my presence is upsetting or annoying others; I very rarely feel like I truly fit in or belong. I start looking for 'proof' that people find me irritating or don't want me around by overanalysing every single thing people say and every facial expression. It's really exhausting and it's not something I consciously do - it just happens, even when I try to not let it happen. And when it happens, it usually spirals into a depressive self-loathing, which I work very hard to internalise while putting on fake smiles and fake laughter. I absolutely hate it when people can see that I'm hurting or upset.

I very rarely ask for reassurance. I intensely want to ask people sometimes but I can never make myself ask because I feel like I am being selfish and self-centred, and I worry that they will say something that is not reassuring, or will reassure me in a dismissive way. It takes very little to shatter me into a million pieces and hurt me. I hate being so freakin' sensitive. It drives me insane. I'm hoping therapy will help me work through this because my sensitivity, hypervigilance and extreme distrust of others is a huge part of what makes it so difficult for me to be around people.

 

[Abstract]

Hi Philipa,

When the person is so invested in being right, even when in reality they are wrong, and you cannot say anything. Once they believe you to have done whatever it was they accused you of.

Its very disturbing. And when it is done aggressively I think it is because the persons projection is so intense or that accepting that it is their stuff so unacceptable that they cannot allow themselves to see the truth. I find reminding myself that it is a projection helps. It isn't about me.

don't give the benefit of the doubt when the person deserves it, and do give it to people who don't! It's so screwed up.

I suspect this is quite common. Its like our ability to tell safe from not is totally distorted. I am both exceeding distrustful and then seem to loose all capacity to defend myself or self protect in other situations.

There is a definite element of pure aggression with this stuff when it comes to my sister. She knows where my vulnerable points are and seems to go after them. When that happens I suspect it is purely an emptying out of rage and control and projecting it onto someone.

I tend to experience jealousy as a painful lonely emotion, an agonising awareness of what I don't have

MD, You made me face up to the truth a little. I have a hatred of feeling jealousy and therefore a rejection of it and if one looks at family psychology that probably means it is an issue for me! You are totally right that jealousy comes in many flavours. I think what I don't do is the controlling classic behaviour that we first think of when it comes to jealousy. That harking after being someone else or having their life or even just that distant ache of "not having" is something I am familiar with. My mind has a horrible tendency to compare or evaluate unless I control it. I hate that that is the case.

 

[shoulderblades]

That harking after being someone else or having their life or even just that distant ache of "not having" is something I am familiar with

That's how I experience jealousy, too - not as something that breeds anger or resentment so much as deep sadness. I've experienced it like that for as long as I can remember. It's as if my mind is screaming out to me that I CAN have a better life, that the life of misery I have had is not normal; it's as if my mind is pointing out to me in a maladaptive way that I deserve a lot better than I've been given and allow myself.

 

[maddog]

I have, over time, become a huge believer that the things that annoy or disturb me in other people, usually do so because they threaten some, usually hidden, insecurity or quality or unmet need in myself that I am deeply ashamed of. Jealousy is a good case in point. It's a trait I dislike and am irritated by in others, and yet I think at least part of the reason for that is that I have a deeply hidden, shameful jealous part within myself who is desperately, resentfully miserable about everything I haven't received and that others seem to take for granted. I am appalled to admit this, and know that I unconsciously suppress these feelings to such an extent that coming face to face with them in someone else is personally threatening to me and causes me to reject the other person.

I think we can learn a lot about our hidden "parts" by the reaction that others bring out in us. Often they aren't nice things to learn, and at first can feel like discovering all of these horrible things about yourself. But I think that the more accurate alternate interpretation is that they are our unmet basic needs which have been squashed and denied, because like all feelings, they are just feelings, not reflections on ourselves or our worth, and there is usually a damn good reason why they are there in the first place.

Maddog

 

[LizardViolet]

Supporter here. I know that my sufferer does this projection thing -- it's a perennial problem, that he'll accuse me of deliberating avoiding him when I just miss a phone call or a text. It's in his head. It's very tough to deal with on my end, because I go out of my way to be responsive to him. I interrupt phone calls with other people and pick up my phone when he calls even if I'm in the middle of a work appointment.

I know that he freaks out because he cares and he's looking to me for support and connection, and he gets tipped over the edge when he can't reach me. But he doesn't realize it.

He has exposed more of himself to me than to pretty much anyone else in his life. And he treats me the worst, too, as he defends against his feelings of vulnerability by lashing out or pushing me away. This shit is hard.

 

[shoulderblades]

I think we can learn a lot about our hidden "parts" by the reaction that others bring out in us. Often they aren't nice things to learn, and at first can feel like discovering all of these horrible things about yourself.

I agree with this. How people react to things says a great deal more about them than it does about the thing they're reacting to. This doesn't just apply to abuse victims - this also applies to abusers themselves. How our abusers reacted to us and the things they did to us in no way define who we are - rather, it speaks volumes about the abuser. And of course, everything has cause and effect, and the way our abusers reacted to us and treated us directly influences how we react and treat others because of the way it shattered our perception of ourselves. Any threatening behaviour - or even behaviour that's interpreted as threatening - is going to bring out that cause and effect. That isn't always very nice, either. In fact, it can be downright abusive - either towards ourselves or towards others (or even both).